> So, if the MAME documentation stated that they want to preserve arcade history and
> the feel of the games, then I would have said nothing. But they talk as if MAME was
> supposed to be some mere tech documentation of PCBs. And a PCB doesn't know anything
> about what the game will look like on a screen, therefore, if MAME was really just
> about hardware preservation of arcade boards in software form, filters wouldn't be
> necessary.
It's not just about the PCBs; it's also about the relevant cabinet components that went into what the games actually looked like at the time. And CRTs and their foibles are a *huge* part of that.
> > One also needs to keep in mind that the inclusion of things such as artwork and
> > backgrounds, etc., is required in some games in order to properly display what is
> > going on.
>
> Oh, really? Well, where do we need this? Oh, right: When we actually want to play the
> game. From a programming point of view, it makes no difference.
Incorrect. For games like Golly! Ghost the electromechanical elements are as much a part of the game's operation as the ROM code. The sensors that tell where the mechnical stuff is feeds back to the board, so the board is not properly documented if there isn't some kind of simulation of the mechanical bits.
> Nobody would bother to work on MAME if it was only able to play "Pac-Man" at one
> frame per second with the sound output as a mere wave graphic, just because the code
> would be a board documentation.
You say this at a time when the majority of the dev team spends the majority of their time on MESS, sometimes on machines that had no games at all, and many of which do not run 100% on any computer available.
> But if playing was nearly
> impossible, nobody would care about the "hardware preservation".
No end user would. MAMEdev would roll merrily along.
> > In order
> > to determine if the emulation is correct, one needs to be able to see what the
> output
> > on the screen is in all parts of the game, so the artwork/overlays/bezels etc. play
> a
> > huge role in that.
>
> Nope, that's a lie. To determine if the emulation is correct, you don't need any
> bezel or artwork. The board's code knows nothing of it. For comparison, all you need
> is the real board. The question which artwork was placed where in the cabinet plays
> no role here.
Incorrect. For games with e.g. colored overlays and the like, you are not giving an accurate representation of the operation without them. Bezels and such similarly offer a more accurate representation of how the machine operated.
> That's all good, but there are two things:
> 1. MAME doesn't describe itself as a program to preserve cathode ray tubes.
CRTs are a pretty vital part of accurately representing the operation of these games, so we've gotten into that business.
> 2. The way the monitor displayed the image is totally unimportant if you're just
> interested in the inner workings of the board. If I merely want to know how data was
> moved from ROM to RAM etc. in a PCB, then I don't need to know about CRT monitors
> because an actual arcade board doesn't know either.
You're welcome to run -video none -debug if that's the only part of the operation you're interested in.
Basically, I don't get why this is so important to you. The statement that gameplay is a nice side effect is entirely true, you will never ever get MAMEdev to admit otherwise (because the statement is true), and your arguing otherwise changes nothing.
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